Monday, July 16, 2012

Today I have a guest post by Martin Leicht and Isla Neal as part of their MOTHERSHIP time capsule blog tour. We'll get to that in a moment.

First check out this hilarious summary:

Pregnant. In space. Yeah, things are really looking up.

It’s 2074 and Elvie’s unplanned pregnancy (with Cole Archer, who bolted out of town half a millisecond after hearing the news, not that Elvie’s bitter about it or anything) forces her to leave her best bud back on Earth and spend her junior year aboard a corny old space cruiser with forty-five other hormonal teen girls (one of whom just happens to be her arch-nemesis). Getting shipped off to the Hanover School for Expecting Teen Mothers was not how Elvie imagined spending her junior year, but she can go with the flow. That is, until a team of hot commandos hijacks the ship—and one of them turns out to be Cole.

Mothership is the first installment in a new trilogy from Martin Leicht and Isla Neal that has been described as Juno meets Pretty In Pink…but in space.

Now how could I resist that? MOTHERSHIP was not on my radar at all, so it was such a nice surprise. I'd describe it as a very funny sci-fi black comedy (I say black because there is a lot of death) and it reminded me a lot of BUMPED and THUMPED by Megan McCafferty (and you know how much I adored those books). Though Elvie's voice is sometimes a tad too snarky teen for my taste, I do have to admit she has some great one-liners. I love how smart and resourceful Elvie is - no knocked-up damsel in distress here. I also love the clever plot and great twists. And what a well executed cliffhanger! Looking forward to the next book for sure.

And now for word from the authors:

Life will undoubtedly be very different for Elvie Nara in the year 2074. It’s fun to imagine all of the crazy technology and fashion and entertainment people will be exposed to sixty years from now. But sometimes it’s just as hilarious to look to the past and mock their conventions. So, in that vein, we were asked to think of some contemporary objects that we would put in a time capsule for Elvie to discover. She’d probably make fun of a lot of it—after all, these are things that would have been “cool” for her grandparents! Still, we think she’ll get a kick out of seeing what we were watching, wearing, eating, and more.

Just like any teenager, Elvie has her favorite snacks. And although being pregnant has given her some pretty odd cravings at the moment (peach yogurt and black olives, anyone??), we still think she’d find some of our food choices more than slightly peculiar. So here are two food-related items we’d tuck into the time capsule, just to make Elvie go, “For serious?”

Corn

These days, corn is everywhere. You eat it on the cob, in a bowl, in cornbread, corn chips, tortillas. But more likely than not you’re eating it in a lot of other places, too. It’s there in your soft drink and your juice. In your ketchup and your baking powder. Fructose, sucrose, high-fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin . . . just try to find foods at your local supermarket that don’t contain at least one of these corn-based ingredients. On average, a single person in the United States eats 1500 pounds of corn every year! Corn is even used in non-food items, like skateboards, golf tees, and—believe it or not—urinals. In the U.S., corn ethanol is also used as an alternative to petroleum products as a source of fuel. We basically eat, drive, wear, and pee on corn. Yowza.

Elvie’s world is quite different in this respect. With the development of new technology to create climate-controlled mini-farm complexes, farmers will be able to produce a wide variety of different crops within the same few acres, leading to more diversity in local foods. Corn-infused everything will be a thing of the past, and Elvie would be quite surprised to discover how different her food tastes from ours. In her time, the only place she finds corn is on her plate at Thanksgiving, or at her dad’s annual 4th of July BBQ (Mr. Nara grills up a mean cob).

Below is symbolic video of corn consumption today, the “Death by Corn” scene from the classic film Witness (one of Elvie’s favorite flat pics!).

Iron Chef

Hey, eating turtle meat sounds kinda gross, right? Well, what if you had to use it as your main ingredient in a plate of nachos, in a broth-based soup, as a stir-fried entrée, and even in an ice cream sundae?

That’s the premise of “Iron Chef,” a wickedly hilarious cooking show where competing chefs must plan out a menu using a “secret ingredient,” then have their creations judged by a panel of weirdos. Many times the ingredient is fairly mundane, like oranges or chocolate. But often times it’s something deliciously bizarre, like octopus or seaweed. One time the ingredient was actually water. Watching the ingenious ways the chefs utilize these sometimes unorthodox ingredients is always a hoot, even if some of the resulting meals are fairly gag-worthy. And every once in a while, an initially revolting ingredient turns into a truly fabulous creation.

Elvie, with her pregnancy cravings going full tilt, would no doubt be more than a little intrigued by a turtle meat sundae. And her poor BFF, Ducky, would have to be strong when he takes a few bites, too, out of solidarity.

Check out the intro to the show here, which is worth watching just for the totally badass moment when the show’s creator, Chairman Kaga, takes a bite out of a raw sweet pepper for basically no reason.

2 comments:

This was a really fun and inventive post, and the book sounds like one that I would really love to read. I can't imagine a pregnant teen in space, so this sounds like a wild ride guaranteed to command my attention. Great post today, Lenore. Martin and Isla sound like really fun people!